The Senate Committee on National Population and National Identity led by Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi has called on the National Identity Management Commissinn, NIMC to step up actions that will lead to the registeration and issuance of National Identity Card to Nigerians.

Hunkuyi who made this known when the management team of NIMC led by its Director General, Aliyu Azeez appeared before the committee for the 2018 budget defence said he had received a lot of complaints from his colleagues (lawmakers) and other Nigerians over the issuance of the National Identity cards.

He said though the performance in respect of the registration and issuance of national identity cards to Nigerians in the last two years is higher than what was obtained some years ago, there is need to make serious and sincere efforts to register and issue the identity cards to all Nigerians.

Azeez while defending the N6.6 billion budget proposal for 2018 before the Hunkuyi-led committee said the commission had registered about 25 million Nigerians in its data base. He said it is true that most of those who had gotten NIN are yet to get the national Identity Cards, efforts are being made to print the ID cards for as many that are being registered.

Meanwhile, the committee has postponed the 2018 budget defence of National Population Commission indefinitely. This was because of the absence of the chief executive officers. The chairman and the director geneneral of the commission were reportedly indeposed.

Hunkuyi said though some of the commissioners of the NPC were available for the budget defence, the committee could not proceed with the budget defence since non of the two chief executive officers of the commission was avaible.